Fast dynamics of glass-forming glycerol

Abstract

The vibrational and relaxational dynamics of glycerol has been measured by incoherent neutron scattering for energy transfers from some 10 \ensuremath{\mu}eV to several 10 meV, and for temperatures from 4 to 413 K. On heating towards and above the glass transition, scattering from low-frequency vibrations shows an unspectacular increase that is consistent with ultrasonic data. We propose using the vibrational density of states for calculating the Fourier transformed time correlation function S(q,t) without the cutoff usually imposed by the kinematics of neutron scattering. For high temperatures and low frequencies, structural relaxation is well described by the empirical Kohlrausch law. There is no extended crossover region between vibrations and structural relaxation.